Mozilla has released the first beta release of Firefox 3.6, which comes with some nice Windows 7 integration features. More specifically, the Firefox 3.6 beta integrates with the new taskbar in Windows 7.

What? It's not upstream that has to go around finding stuff to integrate. It's the ones who create new stuff that have to offer them to upstream projects. This is what it means to be a good citizen in the open source community.

Upstream projects are just the reference code base, they are not people. The people are whoever contributes.

Please, if someone doesn't share your exact definition of freedom, that does not automatically mean they are not good citizens. It's a simple as that.

One could also say it's much more complicated than that. Do you demand from a child that he/she gives back to society the instant they are given something? Does it matter *how and what* that individual gives back eventually? Who will decide what the "giving back" is ultimately worth?

The "open source community" does not have a strict definition for what it means to be a good citizen. You may, however, and i can certainly respect that. Just don't make it sound like you represent the whole "open source community".

If you don't want to contribute back to the original project, and the license doesn't force you to (few do), then you don't have to. You are not even forced to improve the software at all.

However, if you do make and distribute changes but don't try to merge them upstream, you are not doing anything wrong, but you are also not being a good citizen either. You are taking what upstream gives you, but you are only making the improvements available to your sub-community.

Expecting upstream developers to go around looking for stuff to integrate is just like saying "we take your stuff for free, but if you want our improvements you get off your ass and come get them". Doesn't sound nice, does it?

The "open source community" does not have a strict definition for what it means to be a good citizen. You may, however, and i can certainly respect that. Just don't make it sound like you represent the whole "open source community".

You've described one of the reasons why so many businesses avoid open source software like the plague. There's formally-defined license terms, any reasonable business person would assume "I've complied with the terms of the license, so everything's A-OK."

But NOOOOOOO, there are these additional unspoken obligations that exist only the minds of the "community." Despite being vague and undefined, hordes of angry GNU/Freetards will rake anyone over the coals if they don't meet those imaginary "obligations." And when you boil it down, most of the "obligations" are along the lines of "give me anything I want for free, and by the way what's taking you so long?"

So you have a community where the collective sense of self-entitlement is only exceeded by its collective anti-commerce mentality. Most businesses take one look, and run in the opposite direction (as they should).

I like how Android took the linux kernel and replaced everything else with the apache license. It may very well be the future of linux (at least in the mobile space) as it sidesteps GTK+/QT, KDE/GNOME and all the other fighting between thousands of linux distros.

You've described one of the reasons why so many businesses avoid open source software like the plague. There's formally-defined license terms, any reasonable business person would assume "I've complied with the terms of the license, so everything's A-OK."

That should be nothing unusual to businesses, though - the differences between 'legal' and 'socially acceptable' extend far beyond the Open Source communities. Dubious expenses claims by politicians, for example - they might be within the letter of the law, but the public don't find that to be much of an excuse. Or the tax avoidance that several NZ banks are getting beaten up over - legal, but unacceptable to the public.

Nobody is morally forced to contribute back, neither companies nor individuals, having or not having the skill to do it. Those are ideas that you and others are trying to read in what I originally wrote. Not contributing back is just fine, as long as the license allows it.

I'm saying that if you do publish your changes but can't be bothered to push those changes upstream, then upstream developers also have no obligation to go around wasting the time they have to, you know, actually develop, searching for stuff that you could easily bring to their attention.

Implying that all the burden should be on upstream developers, and that it's their interest to incorporate your changes because you don't want to spend 10 minutes writing an email and creating a patch _is_ bad practice. They are not your servants.

I don't follow the cult of Stallman, far from it. If you don't want to contribute, fine. But if you try to push all the work to those that are creating, for free and in their spare time, the stuff you use, that's freeloading.